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ORA-NE FOR GRL'UGIBLE FURNACES. No. 310,695. Patented Jan; 13, 1885.

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LEYVIS WV. MALLASEE AND FRANK l3. NIMIOK, OF PITTSBURG, PA.

CRANE FOR CRUClBLE FURNACES.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 310,695, dated January13, 1885.

Application filed January 14, 1894. (No model.)

To all whom, it may concern.-

Be it known that we, Lnwrs W. MALLA- sun and FRANK B. NIMIoK, both ofPittsburg, in the county of Allegheny and State of Pennsylvania, haveinvented a new and useful Improvement in Cranes for Crucible Furnaces;and we do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exactdescription thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawings,forming a part of this specification, in which- Figure 1 is a View ofour improved crucible-furnace appliances. Fig. 2 is a view of thepouring-shank or teemingtongs, and Fig. 3 is a detail.

Like letters of reference indicate like parts wherever they occur.

Heretofore it has been customary to use small crucibles, capable ofholding a charge of about one hundred pounds, for melting steel incrucible-furnaces, for the reason that such crucibles are raised out ofthe furnace by hand, which is an arduous and difficult operation,requiring considerable skill on the part of the workman. For makinglarge ingets and castings the use of these small erucibles isobjectionable, because the contents of several crucibles are necessaryto obtain the requisite amount of metal for the purpose, and thecharacter of the steelin different crucibles is frequently not uniform,and hence the castings are not always homogeneous. Furthermore, a largenumber of such crucibles are required, and charging them is necessarilya very frequent operation and requires as much time and nearly the sameamount of labor as would be needed in charging an equal number of muchlarger crucibles. In pouring or teeming the metal one man handled eachcrucible singly, and although they are relatively much smaller than theones we use, yet the labor of teeming, owing to the position of theteemers body, which the weight of the metal and the care and precisionwith which it has to be poured into the molds to prevent cutting themrender it necessary for him to assume, makes the operation extremelysevere and exhausting. The small size of the crucibles requires aconsiderable number of teemers, which increases the cost of the steel,as it involves skilled labor. All these objections are overcome by theuse of our invention, which enables us to use crucibles of at leastdouble the size of the old ones, and yet handle them with much greaterease and with a lower grade of and consequently cheaper labor and fewerworkmen. It also enables us to produce a more uniform grade of steel,and consequently better castings.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use our invention, wewill now describe it by reference to the drawings.

Here a represents an ordinary gas crucible furnace; b, the bottom, and ca crucible.

Arranged at the side of the furnace a is a crane, (1, preferablyhydraulic, havingaswinging jib, d, on which is a runner or carrier, 0,having suspension hook or ring (2. The crane is so arranged relativelyto the furnace that its jib swingsover and commands the mouth of thelatter, so that a suitable pair of tongs, g, suspended by chain y to thecarrier 6, can

be lowered into and raised out of the furnace thereby, for the purposeof inserting and removing the crucibles. These crucibles are very muchlarger than those heretofore used, and their use is rendered possible bythe employment and arrangement of the crane d, not only from the vfactthat it has the necessary strength to handle them, but also because itraises and lowers them by a direct vertical movement, and not by thesomewhat lateral swing or jerk by which the workmen heretofore raisedthe crucible out of the furnace, and which had a tendency to strain andinj ure it and pull it apart, with the loss of the charge. It alsoenables the crucible to be placed on the floor without shock or jar,while heretofore it frequently happened otherwise,

owing to the weight and momentum as well 7 as to the want of skill andlack of sufficient strength on the part of the workman, to the detrimentand often'destruction of the crucible, loss of the steel, and danger tothe workman from the escaping molten steel. The tongs g have curvedgripping-jaws g, which encircle the crucible, and arms or handles 9which are locked together by a rack-baror segment, 71, pivoted to one ofthem and extending through a slot in the other, where it is heldin placeby a spring, 1n teeming, a two handled tool, 70, called a teemingshank,

having a lever end, 7;, and a straight handle k is used. The latter isheld and supported by an ordinary laborer, while the teernerholds thelever end and tips the crucible thereby to pour the charge into themold. In this operation a common laborer is substituted for a teemer inpouring an equal quantity of metal, because by the old method eachcrucible is poured by a teemer, and in pouring the same amount of metaltwo or more such crucibles would need to be used, which, in making alarge casting, would have to be poured at the same time.

The work of charging involves weighing the stock to obtain properuniformity of weight and proportions. It is just as easy to weigh alarge charge as a small one, while the frequency of charging islessened, owing to the size of the crucible.

WVhat we claim as our invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent,is

LEVIS WV. MALLASEE. FRANK B. NIMICK.

VVitnes ses':

W. B. GoRWIN, TrroMAs B. KERR.

